Trespass (18 page)

“You shouldn’t run in those sneakers of yours,” he said. “They can’t be good for your arches or your ankles.”

“Probably not. Just tell me you don’t plan to shoe me like a horse.”

He folded his paper. “Next time I have a job to do near town, I’ll swing by the shoe store and see if they have something cushier.”

Her smile was warm and it lit Russ up from the inside.

“That’s sweet, but running shoes are like bras. You can’t grab a pair off the shelf and expect they’ll fit right. And speaking of bras, this one’s not exactly ideal.” She plucked at the strap.

Russ swallowed, pushing away the knowledge of how she looked in said bra. “No, I guess not.”

“But really, it was nice to even be moving like that again. Think it cleared out some of my cobwebs.”

“Well, if you stick around, maybe we’ll have to take a trip into Billings, see what we can find you at a mall. I’ve got some stuff I ought to stock up on too.”

She nodded. “I’d like that.”

“And actually, I was thinking…”

“Thinking about what?”

Russ cleared his throat, finally ready to voice the issue that had been dogging him since he’d remembered it upon waking. “A client of mine is retiring this week, and a bunch of folks are throwing a party for him at the bar tomorrow night.”

Her warm smile curled at the edges, transforming to a smirk. “You need a designated driver?”

Russ shook his head. “More like a date.” He held her eyes and watched them widen. “Not like, a date-date. As a friend. As my guest. I mean, I hope that’s how you feel now. A guest, not a prisoner.”

“I’m getting there… And yeah, I’d love to get out again. Out with you, I mean. I won’t run.”

Russ flinched, hating the dynamic that’d grown between them, this apologetic streak of tenuous trust. “I know you won’t run.”

“Only around and around in circles.” She smiled and pointed out the window toward the fields.

He took a stab at joking back, praying they were ready for it. “For all I know you’re in training for an epic escape act.”

His heart sank for a few beats as she held her tongue, eyes narrowing. “And for all I know, you’re going to drop me off at the sheriff’s station on the way to this so-called party.”

He nodded. “For all each of us knows.”

Her smile returned, slow and sly. “Well do me a favor, Russ. Get a couple strong drinks in me before you turn my ass in. Send me off in style.”

“There’s a pretty good chance the sheriff could be at the going-away bash.”

“Oh.”

“But I mean, he wouldn’t be looking for you. Not all the way out here.”

Sarah frowned. “No, probably not. He can’t memorize every federal wanted poster, I guess.”

“It’s a sleepy town, but no, I doubt even he’s got that much free time…” He crossed his arms. “When’s the last time you checked the internet, anyway? Do you know any details about the case, like if it’s been on the news or anything?”

“I haven’t checked it, actually.”

He blinked. “Really?”

“Well, I checked the Buffalo news the day after I left town. I saw the story, just a blurb. ‘Suspect wanted in drug-deal-gone-violently-wrong’ or something like that, and the date and the address. I saw enough to know the cops were investigating it. The only other chances I’ve had to check were at a couple libraries, and I was afraid to Google anything specific and bring up a screen with my face plastered all over it with like a big wanted banner.”

“Oh, right.”

“Or to check my email, in case the feds can track that kind of thing. I don’t know how it works. And I’m afraid to know, frankly.”

“What if it’s like, blown over? What if you’re free to get back home?”

She shook her head. “Murders don’t just blow over, Russ. Not even in
my
crappy neighborhood. Plus what am I supposed to go back to, even if everything were magically okay? I didn’t leave a career or any family. I’ve got a few friends I’ll miss, but way more enemies, now. Buffalo’s over. I’m okay with that. I wanted to move on years ago, except I had no money and a mother I didn’t trust to leave alone.”

“Right.”

She worked her fingers through her tangled hair. “But yes, I’d love to be your date or whatever. Too bad I don’t have something nice to wear.”

“The folks in town consider anything aside from overalls dressy. You’ll be fine.”

She nodded and Russ got lost in thoughts like those from the night before—visions of Sarah in a dress, shining like those women from her magazines.

“Well, I stink. I better take a shower.”

He nodded, pushing that visual from his mind as well.

“And later I thought maybe I’d start going through your spare room. If that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah. Let me know when, and I’ll try and give you some direction.”

“Thanks again.” She said it over her shoulder and her flushed face was transformed by a smile as she disappeared into the bathroom.

Russ turned to stare out the window across his field, imagining her running along the border, hair swinging, dogs chasing. “Seven years it takes you to find a woman you like,” he muttered to himself. “Figures you’d pick the one with a price on her head.”

Sarah rounded the side of the house as Russ’s truck crunched up the gravel driveway in the early afternoon. He’d been called out for most of the morning on jobs and left her without enough chores. She’d thrown a stick for Kit for so long her elbow ached.

Russ returned her wave as he hopped out of the cab. Before he slammed the door, she spotted his keys dangling from the ignition and wondered if he’d done that consciously or not.

“Anything exciting?” she asked.

“No, not terribly. You?”

“Think I gave myself arthritis from playing fetch with your dog, but that’s about it. Can I make you lunch?”

He shook his head. “Got fed on my last job.”

“Oh, that’s a nice perk.”

Russ smirked. “I think this woman wants to betroth me to her daughter…but I won’t turn down a free meal.”

Sarah forced a smile. “You shouldn’t turn down a free daughter, either, from the sound of the dating pool around here.”

“Twenty’s a bit young for me,” he said, heading for the front porch.

How about twenty-seven?
“If you have a few minutes to explain it, I’d love to start organizing your back room.”

He kicked his boots off at the door and she followed suit.

“Yeah, no problem. Just let me change.”

A few minutes later Russ emerged from his room in fresh clothes and poured himself a cup of cold coffee from the machine. “You um… You made my bed.”

She held her breath.

“Thanks,” he added.

Sarah exhaled. “I invented a bunch of things to do, actually. I hope you didn’t have some special system worked out for your albums, because they’re alphabetical by artist now.”

Russ laughed, a sound she hadn’t heard in far too long. “That’ll do nicely.”

“The W section’s quite excessive.”

Russ set his coffee on the dinner table and put his hands to his hips, looking her straight in the face. “Thank you.”

“Not sure I deserve th—”

He put up a hand to cut her off. “Don’t. If you apologize to me one more time my heart’s going to break.”

“Oh.” She held back the “sorry” straining to follow that syllable.

“I know you’re sorry. And you do deserve my thanks, for what you’re doing around the house. I think you wish you could take back what happened those first few days as much as I do.”

The theft or the sex?

“So let’s just…let’s just do that,” he went on. “Let’s try to forget how we started out.”

“Okay.”

“You just be Sarah, and I’ll be me, and you’re here to help out until you decide what comes next for you.”

The invitation was kind, though it drove a nail into her chest to hear the situation’s temporary status laid out so plainly. “I’d like that.”

Russ stepped forward and shook her hand firmly. “Good. No more apologies for what happened.”

“Agreed.”

He nodded.

“Put me to work.”

He picked up his cup and wandered past her to the back room, pushing the door in. It was a cheerful space, sunny, with the same view of the front yard as Russ’s bedroom. Sarah took in a few items she hadn’t noticed the previous night, a large wicker hamper filled with fabric beside an ancient Singer table, its attached sewing machinery flipped tidily into storage position. Her salivary glands kicked in. She walked over and ran a reverent hand over its dusty wood. “Wow.”

“Yeah, my wife was into quilting.”

“I hope you don’t plan on selling this. It must be fifty years old.”

“I always meant to bring it to her sister. I think it used to belong to their grandma.”

Sarah nodded, still ogling.

“I’ll be right back.” Russ left and returned a minute later with a fistful of white trash bags and a Sharpie. Sarah snapped to attention.

“So to start, I’d like to get all the clothes out of the closet so I can take them to the Salvation Army drop-off. Anything that the moths got to you can put in another bag and label it trash.”

“Okay.”

“And I’m going to see if I can find the original box for that crib.” He nodded to it. “I can’t remember if it’s tricky to take apart, but I’d like to get that donated too.”

“Sure thing.” She watched Russ’s face as he poked around the tidy piles of stuff, expression blank. She’d given up on any number of aspects of her old life since arriving here, but it must feel different, giving up on hopes for parenthood…disassembling the dreams one had shared with now-missing loved ones. If Russ was hurting, he hid it well. He rummaged then slid a large flattened box from behind the bookshelf.

“Eureka.” He leaned it against the wall, looking pleased. “Feel free to get to work on the closet. I’ll figure out what tools we need for this.”

We.
Odd chore to share with the man she’d desperately wanted to sleep with
. Still
desperately wanted to sleep with, if she was honest. He’d put the kibosh on sex, and the intimacy inherent in helping pack away his abandoned potential for fatherhood and his dead wife’s clothes was an absurdly unsatisfying substitute.

She sighed to herself.
He’s your friend now, if you’re lucky. Live with it.

Sarah slid the closet door aside and took stock. Lots of sweaters and coats, a wooden shelf neatly lined with women’s shoes. She grabbed a trash bag, flattening it against the floor then labeling it
donate
. She inventoried the hangers and tried to picture the woman who’d once worn these clothes. Practical, surely. A woman who favored wool in earth tones and comfortable, well-made size-seven leather shoes in a drab rainbow of browns and black. It was an ugly impulse to judge a person seven years dead as a rival, but it was a human impulse as well. Sarah allowed herself a few bitter thoughts about the woman who’d deserved a man as good as Russ as her husband. For one, she dressed like a matron, though she couldn’t have been much older than thirty when she died. Sarah flicked through the hangers. Olive green, navy blue, maroon—

“Whoa.” She slid it forward from the back of the closet—floor-length cream satin.

Russ walked over and joined her in staring at the gown. Sarah turned to find him smiling, not looking pained, merely thoughtful.

“Wow.” Sarah ran a gentle hand down the fabric. “This is beautiful.”

He nodded. “Her sister made it.”

“Wow,” she said again. “I know dresses, and this is, like, amazing.”

“You know dresses?”

“Oh yeah. I love sewing.” She lifted it from the closet and studied the seams, the darts, the detailing around the neckline. “Your wife must have had a beautiful figure.” She couldn’t have guessed it from the collection of shapeless sweaters. A size ten, the fitted top half of the dress suggested, slender but lush in the breasts and hips. “I always wanted curves.” She gave the gown a final appreciative study and hung it up tenderly.

“She always wanted long legs,” Russ said.

Sarah smiled, feeling a strange sensation of closeness, perhaps with Russ, perhaps with his dead wife. They’d shared a lover and a predictable set of female woes, coveting bits of each other’s figures. The jealous curiosity left her, along with the sadness and the hopeless feeling that she’d never stack up to the woman he’d married, her perfection frozen in his memories.

“What was it like, your wedding?” she asked, still staring into the closet.

“Pretty simple. Sort of a glorified barbecue.”

“Mighty nice gown for a barbecue.”

“Well her sister lives for that stuff. Beth would’ve been happy in jeans.”

She met his eyes. “That was her name? Beth?”

Russ nodded.

“You miss her?”

She studied his face as he thought and noticed new lines etching his brow, a pair of gray hairs at one temple.

“I missed her terribly for the first year or two. Then after a while, I think I missed women, in general. I’ll always miss her, of course… I feel sad that she didn’t get to be around longer, to have the kids she wanted. And I’m sad for her family. But I don’t feel bad for myself anymore, not the way I used to.”

“Was she like your soul mate, do you think?”

Russ made a quizzical face. “I don’t know… She was my partner, was how I thought about it. We got along real well, shared the same priorities and politics, respected each other, liked each other’s families. We made a lot of sense together. I loved her, a lot. And I’m pretty sure we’d have stayed married for the long haul, if we’d gotten the chance.”

She could sense a “but” in his tone but didn’t dare ask for details.

Russ cleared his throat. “Me and Beth weren’t hot-blooded together, I guess I’d say. Steady, reliable, kind to each other. Loving, you know, but not crazy passionate.”

“Ah.” Sarah let an awkward silence hold court for a moment before she plowed onward. “I always went the other way. Gravitated toward the unreliable jerks who I figured my nonexistent dad would disapprove of.”

“Like the bad-boy types?” Russ asked, a smile tugging the corners of his lips.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“I must be like Dullsville, after all that. I mean, not that you and me…” He flicked a finger between them, trailing off with a faint pink glow in his cheeks.